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Metabolism and Weight Loss
By Angie Mcilwaine
Our metabolic rate determines the rate at which we "burn up" our food, and by
increasing this rate, we can lose weight more quickly, easily, and safely.
When we diet, by decreasing our calorie intake too drastically, we cause our
metabolism to slow down, making it progressively more difficult for us to lose
weight. Most diets fail, yet we continue to try one after another, always hoping
that each new regime will provide the "magic" solution. If this sounds like your
problem, there may be a simple answer. Let's look at why most diets fail, and
how strength training, combined with a healthy food intake can speed up your
metabolism, making it easy for you to lose weight.
By drastically cutting our food intake, our body's natural instinct is to switch
to a "starvation response." The fewer calories we consume, the more our bodies
become efficient at using these calories - leading to slower weight loss. This
was once a useful mechanism for our ancestors when food supplies were less predictable,
but this "vicious circle" can make life almost impossible for the modern dieter.
When the body is persistently kept short of calories, it breaks down muscle
tissue to use as fuel. Our body, using water from our tissue cells, quickly
washes this away causing an instant reduction in weight through water loss.
However, this weight loss will be short lived, and will quickly be regained when
we take in water and the muscle we have lost will slow down our metabolism in
the long term.
The reason for this is that each pound of muscle requires a certain number of
calories each day just to maintain it. Therefore, the more muscle you have, the
more calories you burn even when you're doing nothing, even sleeping! If you
lose muscle, then your daily calorie requirement becomes less.
For example, imagine a dieter loses 10 pounds of muscle (along with maybe 20
lbs. of fat) on a strict diet. Now suppose that each pound of muscle had been
burning 50 calories a day. Together, those 10 pounds of muscle had been burning
500 calories a day. With this muscle tissue gone, the dieter must now consume
500 less calories a day in order to maintain that weight-loss!
However, of course people do not stick to their diets for ever and when they
return to their old eating habits, the weight that they have lost, invariably
comes piling back on. Unfortunately, whilst they lost both muscle and fat during
the diet, all the weight they regained was fat. So, even though they may weigh
the same as they did when they started, they now have a lot more fat and a lot
less muscle than they did before the diet. Therefore, their metabolism is slower
and their calorie requirements are less. Even if they return to their pre-diet
eating habits, they still require 500 fewer calories a day due to the muscle
loss. That's one reason dieters are prone to regaining all of the lost weight,
and conversely sometimes even gain weight afterwards.
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